Born and raised in western Michigan, Cam McLeod attended a small liberal arts college where he studied health sciences with a focus on exercise science and human movement. In 2009, he moved to Utah to pursue graduate school as a physician assistant. But Utah’s mountains lured him in another direction. As a self-taught photographer, he began shooting local skiers, mostly friends. By 2013, his photos were appearing in catalogs for Kühl, the clothing company. That year, he left health care to pursue photography full time.

In 2015, a photo he took of a relatively unknown skier making a deep powder turn under a tree in Myoko, Japan landed on the cover of Powder magazine, and it earned a nomination for the magazine’s photo of the year. “That really helped my career take off,” he says. “More athletes wanted to work with me. That’s how I got introduced to the people at Warren Miller and it’s how I started shooting for Helly Hansen.”